our weakness, a gift

8. “I am nothing. Forgive me,” said ________________.

Said Job, of course, who would have said anything at that point. Apparently it all worked out well for him. He got a new house, new kids, patched things up with the wife. His boils healed and he lived 140 more years. What I think is, he just could not hold on to a sadness that size. That is the one gift we have against all this trouble: our weakness. Things go wrong, people are dopes, your body is fragile, the ones you love can’t help, even your children are crushed in the unfeeling vise of time. But if you don’t kill yourself or become a hopeless addict or die some other way, you go on and more things happen. Eventually, some of them are good things. Ask the Jews. Ask anyone. Someday, when we are 140 years old, I will ask my friend Ellen.

- from Marion Winik, 'The Story of Job: A Readers’ Quiz'
http://www.baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/the-story-of-job-a-readers-quiz/